My debilitating acne was so bad it stopped me leaving the house. I spent years trying every treatment until a specialist revealed the one thing that would help – now for the first time in a decade I finally have clear skin: CHLOE LANDYMORE

I have a recurring anxiety dream that wakes me up every night in tears: It’s my wedding day and I’ve paid a makeup artist a fortune to try to hide the raised red pimples covering my face.

But when he’s done, I look in the mirror and it looks terrible. I run to the bathroom to wash everything off and try again and again. Nothing works, this is not right. The process is taking too long and it’s too late. I’m missing my wedding and everything is cancelled.

Acne has ruined my life since the first blemishes appeared at the age of 13, and since then my skin has been on my mind every minute of my life.

School was a relentless cycle of bullying and anxiety. I was nicknamed ‘pizza face’ and woke up every morning with a pillowcase covered in blood. I would go to extraordinary lengths to make sure no one saw me without makeup, and I would try to hide my face with my hair and avoid eye contact.

By the time I was 16, I had tried every cream and gel, and when I was 17, my doctor put me on birth control pills in the hopes that it would calm the raging hormones causing my cystic acne.

Acne shaped my personality and turned me into the kind of person who would do anything to avoid being in the spotlight. I don’t know if I’m truly an introvert, but I have become one.

When I turned 18, I was on my first course of an oral medication called isotretinoin (80 mg per day), which is also used for chemotherapy. It is so toxic that girls always have to use two forms of birth control (the pill and condoms) because it can cause life-threatening birth defects if you accidentally get pregnant.

It dried my skin and hair so much that the corners of my mouth cracked and bled. It gave me a brief respite during my year when I started studying graphic design at Loughborough University in Leicestershire. But the spots soon returned; first slowly, then as before.

When I was 21, I went on a second six-month course of isotretinoin, which gave me clear skin for several months. But when I turned 23, I returned to the acne gloom of my adolescence.

Every doctor I saw blamed my hormones; apparently too much testosterone. They said everything would be fine when I grew up, but that’s no consolation when you wake up every morning to find new, painful, boil-like cysts on your cheeks.

I met my boyfriend Isaac during freshman week in 2018. He made it clear that he couldn’t care less about my skin. Isaac had his own battle with blemishes as a teenager, and his skin responded to antibiotics and supplements. But he understood the pain I was going through and was incredibly supportive.

When we started living together in our third year, she was the only person I allowed to see me without makeup. Isaac quickly learned to build our social life around my chronic self-consciousness and need to hide when my skin was particularly bad. I played lacrosse for college, which meant constant practices and tournaments.

While other girls could focus 100 percent on sports, I could never escape my spots. I avoided team meetings and photos.

In January last year, Isaac proposed at the top of London’s O2 Arena. It was a wonderful surprise and my first thought was ‘Yes!’ happened. My second thought was: ‘Can we run away and get married without anyone looking at me, taking pictures, or making a fuss?’

We set a wedding date for December this year, but I found myself taking a backseat to the planning and left all the arrangements to my mother. Yes, I really wanted to marry Isaac, but I couldn’t get excited about a day when all eyes would be on me and my blemishes. That’s when the wedding anxiety dreams started.

Isaac’s mother, Louise, then a health writer for the Daily Mail, announced that she would make it her mission to help me fix my skin once and for all.

In January last year, Isaac proposed at the top of London’s O2 Arena. This was a wonderful surprise for Chloe and her first thought was ‘Yes!’ happened.

His second thought was: ‘Can we run away and get married without anyone looking at me or taking pictures or making a fuss?’

He and Isaac’s father, Jon, had battled acne when they were little, so they understood my pain and misery. Louise was on antibiotics as a teenager, and it wasn’t until she was in her mid-20s that her skin finally cleared up.

Jon’s situation was much worse; her acne covered her face, chest, and entire back. He was chosen as a guinea pig for one of the first trials for isotretinoin and was given a large experimental dose, which eventually worked.

Louise devoted herself to researching dermatologists, looking for new ideas or approaches for stubborn hormonal acne like mine. Many told him my best option was another cycle of isotretinoin. But I had already had two rounds of this poison and was dead set against it.

Then, last October, Louise consulted dermatologist Dr Dr, who offers specialist treatments for severe, complex and stubborn acne at her ProDerm clinics in Harley Street, London and Bristol, Cheltenham and Birmingham. He set up a Zoom call with Adam Friedmann.

I wasn’t very hopeful about success, but Dr. I felt like Friedmann understood me and was ready to explore different options rather than giving me a prescription that would force me out of the room.

Dr Friedmann said he wanted to try microdosing isotretinoin and gave me one sixteenth of the dose I had previously taken, with a 10 mg tablet every other day.

He assured me that at such a low dose the side effects would be minimal. I also took a daily antibiotic (Erythromycin – to relieve inflammation) and she recommended a prescription rosacea gel (Rozex) to help with redness and scarring.

Nothing happened for the first three months. I felt defeated, especially as I had to pay for the cocktail of drugs (£160 for three months) from the meager earnings I earned as a marketing manager for a sports company.

Dr Friedmann said he wanted to try a microdose of isotretinoin, giving Chloe one-sixteenth of the dose she had previously taken, in a 10 mg tablet every other day.

After months of isotretinoin and Trimethoprim treatment, Chloe’s skin is now much clearer.

Now 26, she finds it incredibly liberating to not have to worry about her skin for the first time.

At my next checkup four months later, I was ready to give up, but Dr. Friedmann seemed determined to prove me wrong. Increased my isotretinoin dose to 20 mg every day and changed the antibiotic to Trimethoprim.

Then slowly – very slowly – I noticed that new spots stopped appearing and old ones began to heal. Has there finally been light at the end of this tunnel?

I was laid off in March and braced myself for the stress and emotional overload that would explode in my face as it has in the past. But incredibly, my skin did not react at all.

While I was in a supermarket in May, Isaac suddenly noticed me leaving the house without make-up. Dr Friedmann then reduced my daily dose of isotretinoin to 10 mg and discontinued the antibiotics and skin cream.

We know I’m not completely out of the woods yet, and he suggested I keep this little isotretinoin drip going until after the wedding. If my skin stays clear, I will start taking the tablet every other day, then once or twice a week. And then maybe occasionally if I need it.

Today, I’m 26, incredibly liberating Negative This is the first time I will have to worry about my skin. All my wedding fears are different now: my hair and my dress; The kind of things every bride-to-be should worry about.

I am so grateful to Louise for helping me turn something I was afraid of into something I was truly looking forward to.

And that nightmarish wedding dream disappeared. I’ll be doing my own makeup that day, and now I’m experimenting with sheer, minimal coverage foundations to create a fresh, dewy, no-makeup look.

I will just look like myself. I’m not covered in spots.

As told to Louise Atkinson.